Green Claims on Pet Product Listings: What EU Directive 2024/825 Means for Private-Label Brands

Since 27 September 2026, EU rules on environmental claims in consumer marketing apply across the Union. If you sell pet products into the EU under your own brand, the words on your packaging and listings are now your responsibility to support. Here is what changed, what it means when you source from a manufacturer, and how we word our own products. This is a buyer’s summary, not legal advice — check your national rules with a lawyer or your trade authority.

What Changed and When

Directive (EU) 2024/825 was published on 6 March 2024. Member states had to adopt national rules by 27 March 2026 and apply them from 27 September 2026. It amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29/EC) and the Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU). Both concern business-to-consumer practices — so the rules reach the people who talk to the shopper: you, as the brand or seller, rather than the factory behind you. Because each country implements the Directive in its own law, details can differ by market.

What Is Now Prohibited

The Directive adds several practices to the list that are banned in all circumstances. The four that matter most on a pet product listing:

• Generic environmental claims without recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim. The Directive’s recitals give examples: “environmentally friendly”, “eco-friendly”, “green”, “nature’s friend”, “ecological”, “climate friendly”, “biodegradable” and others.
• Claims about the whole product when they concern only one aspect of it.
• Sustainability labels that are not based on a certification scheme or established by public authorities.
• Climate-neutral type claims that rest on offsetting emissions.

The recital examples do not list “natural”. That does not make any wording automatically safe — whether a phrase is a generic environmental claim is decided case by case — which is why we prefer to describe the material itself.

What This Means When You Source From a Factory

• Check the wording on supplier spec sheets and sample packaging. Words a factory prints on its own materials can end up copied into your listing.
• Ask what test or certificate stands behind each environmental word. If there is none, don’t reuse the word.
• Prefer factual material descriptions you can verify from the product in your hand.
• Keep the paperwork file. Origin, fumigation and phytosanitary documents show where and how goods moved; they are not environmental-performance proof, so don’t present them as such.

Wording Examples

How We Word Our Products

We describe each material and process and leave out environmental words we have not tested for. We do not print “biodegradable” or “eco-friendly” on our coconut fibre, loofah or hemp toys. What we can state, we state: the raw material, where it comes from, how it is made, and what ships with the container. See the product pages for Coconut Fiber, Loofah and Hemp, and Our Promise for the documents we provide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Directive apply to a wholesaler selling only to other businesses?
The underlying directives cover business-to-consumer practices. If your customers are shoppers, the rules apply to how you present the product to them; if you sell only to other businesses, confirm with your national authority how your country applies it.

Is “natural” banned?
It is not in the Directive’s list of example generic claims. Whether a specific phrase counts as a generic environmental claim is assessed case by case, so describing the material is the lower-risk wording.

Can you give me a test report for “biodegradable”?
No — we have not run that testing, which is why we do not use the word.

Where can I read the Directive?
The full text is on EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2024/825.

Building a private-label line and want material descriptions you can print with confidence? Request samples and wholesale pricing — three product samples at no charge (courier paid by buyer).